Pictures of the show The Killer Dillers did in Dublin last Friday. Kevin and Juan performed their strut, Sharon sang Nickelodeon while Kevin played his banjolele “Pots”, and finally Sharon and I performed our red fan dance. Click on pictures to enlarge.
Posts Tagged ‘Sharon Davis’
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Show in Dublin (part 2)
April 15, 2010 by Jo
Category Dancers, Events | Tags: Dublin,fan dance,feathers,Ireland,Juan Villafane,Kevin St. Laurent,performance,Sharon Davis,show,The Killer Dillers | 2 Comments
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Camp Jitterbug 2010
February 10, 2010 by Jo
Doesn’t Sharon look amazing?! I am so thrilled that The Killer Diller’s very own Sharon Davis on this year’s Camp Jitterbug flyer and on the website header: www.campjitterbug.com
The photo on the flyer was taken during her tribute act to Josephine Baker in last year’s Jump Session show. Josephine, being one of her all-time greatest inspirations, has inspired numerous costumes that take up a great amount of space in Sharon’s luggage.
The 2010 Camp Jitterbug details are:
Camp Jitterbug & the Jump Session Show 2010
Memorial Day weekend
May 28-31st 2010
Seattle, USA
And this year the Jump Session show will feature all six Killer Dillers! Myself and Kevin, Juan Villafane & Sharon Davis, and Evita Arce & Nathan Bugh will all be attending Camp Jitterbug, performing in the Jump Session Show, competing, and teaching some classes! Without a doubt, Camp Jitterbug is one of the greatest events of the year. Don’t miss out!
Here is the trailer from last year’s Jump Session show. If this doesn’t make you want to be there, I don’t know what would:
Category Competition, Dancers, Events | Tags: 2010,Camp Jitterbug,Evita Arce,Juan Villafane,Jump Session Show,Killer Dillers,Nathan Bugh,performances,Sharon Davis,show | 1 Comment
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Monday workshop in Quebec
November 10, 2009 by Jo
Yesterday I taught a lindy hop, blues, and burlesque workshop and it went rather well. I wasn’t as funny as I normally am while teaching, but I taught a lot of new material. I thought the first class was the blues class so I did a slow warm up with them. Needless to say, everyone looked horrified. I then introduced myself and then said “Welcome to this workshop. We’ll begin with a solo blues routine.” Shriek, gasp, OMG! Wait! It’s a lindy hop class!! Hahah, I looked a tad sheepish, but I changed gears just as quickly. Lunou was my follow and we did basics. I tried to make sure everyone could do weight changes through their center, rock steps with their heels up, and then triple steps. I did some figures, but focused on improve. All in all, I think the class went well AND my lead is getting better. Nice.
In the blues class I worked on hip bumps (using the bum to help accentuate the movement), walking through the hips, and really using the legs to make shapes. Lunou has a group of girls she’s working with and all of them attended. I worked on stuff with the entire class that those girls specifically needed to work on, so I hope they can apply that knowledge to their routine they did (this weekend and at CSC). I made up the routine as I went and then had to remember it (eeek!). It changed along the way, but again I think the class went well.
The burlesque class was a riot. I made the assumption that since winter was coming, every girl would have a jacket and a pair of gloves. In fact, most of them did. So I showed them an act of striptease….not the “art of…” but an act. I didn’t claim to be a master, but I did give a general explanation of the burlesque scene as I understand it and told the girls if they wanted to know more, they could look up the ever-so-talented Sharon Davis and would be able to find heaps of info. I felt like I wasn’t discounting myself by saying that, but was also redirecting them to a master of sort by referencing Shaz. So…… I showed them how to unzip their jackets, how to use their shoulders, and how to make similar shapes that sent different messages. After we did that to music a few times, we moved on to glove removal. I showed the ladies six different ways to remove gloves (and having them remove winter gloves was hilarious because of how big they all were) and then put on the music. At the end, the girls dance around, removed a glove, removed their jackets and then posed. Even though the girls didn’t end up removing clothing, some of them had a hard time with it at the beginning, but by the end of class, most of them were sassy with their gloves and jackets!
Thank you Lunou and Port-O-Swing for having me!!
Category Events, Musings | Tags: blues,burlesque,lindy hop,Lunou,Port-O-Swing,Quebec,Sharon Davis,teaching,workshop | No Comments
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Jitterbug accepted as a Ballroom Dance
September 10, 2009 by Jo
Here is an article from the 20th September 1943 edition of the New York Times (page 23):
Jitterbug Accepted as Ballroom Dance
New York Teachers Combine It with Lindy for Classes
History was made in ballroom dancing yesterday when the New York Society of Teachers of Dancing Inc, at its September meeting in the Hotel Astor, officially recognized and decided to teach the jitterbug as a pastime fitted to accompany waltz, tango and rumba on dance programs.
However, the jitterbug to be taught this fall and winter to the city’s ballroom classes will not be the jitterbug of the hepcats, Harlem sidewalks or high school fiestas. Brought under professional control and ballroom decorum, the refined movements are joined with the forerunner of the jitterbug, the Lindy, to form the Lindy-Jitterbug, which was demonstrated at yesterday’s meeting by Mrs. Oscar Duryea and Patrick J. Mastrolia.
A committee appointed to study the jitterbug and advise on its adaptability to the ballroom reported that youth was dancing the jitterbug and would continue to dance it, and the fact must be recognized. The teachers were reminded that youth, not dancing masters, decreed what should be danced and since the jitterbug in its essence was an expression of youth, the thing to do was to adapt it to the classroom and a ballroom routine. Therefore the committee put together what seemed to be the general basic steps of the jitterbug as danced by the youth of the metropolitan area.
In 1941 the US entered WWII and brought lindy hop to the world. Two years later this article was written. Once jitterbug was adapted for the ballroom world, it became more mainstream and therefore was more accessible to the white crowd.
______________For more amazing articles like this, and tons a fabulous tidbits from history, please visit Sharon Davis’ blog. She spent many hours scouring microfilm archives while she was in university to dig them up, so go check them out!! She’s not only a rad chick, but she knows her history and her music and she has a keen eye for fashion!
Category Musings | Tags: ballroom,dance,history,jitterbug,lindy,lindy hop,microfilm,Sharon Davis,white | No Comments
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Happy Birthday Sharon!
July 24, 2009 by Jo
What a fun Birthday Day Ms. Sharon Davis just had. Well (smirk), at least according to my standards.
Last night around 3am we celebrated Shaz by indulging in brownies and ice cream. Kev bought a round of treats for us all and then we sang Happy Birthday. As we continued to eat, in good ol’ Herrang fashion, foreigners continued to walk by the Blue Moon Cafe and then it dawned on the group of us to get them to sing. Slowly but surely, Sharon was serenaded multiple times, by multiple people, in multiple languages. Here’s the list of what came by:
Catalan
Castillian
Portuguese – Parabéns a você,
Italian – buon compleanno
French – Joyeux anniversaire !
German – Alles gute zum Geburtstag!
Finnish – Hyvää syntymäpäivää
Norwegian – Gratulerer med dagen!
Danish – Tillykke med fødselsdagen
Swedish – Grattis på födelsdagen !
Hebrew – ום הולדת שמח “Yom Huledet Sameakh”
Ukrainian – Многая Літа Олек! (Mno-haja Leeta Oh-lek)
Russian – С днём рождения! S dnyem rojdeniya!
Lithuanian – su gimtadieniu Su gimimo diena
Hungarian -boldog születésnapot
Irish – Breithlá shona duit
Pig Lain
Mime – this was acted out silently, but with much enthusiasmHopefully I’ve have found the correct translations and have linked to to appropriate songs. If you know of a better video clip of someone singing “happy birthday” in whatever language, please send it to me.
Happy Birthday Shaz!! Enjoy your mustache, your jewels, the cake and banana bread!!! xoxoxo
Category Dancers, Musings | Tags: birthday,celebration,culture,Herrang,international,language,multilingual,Sharon,Sharon Davis | No Comments
